Stuff Worth Knowing for the Week of July 3, 2023
Threads comes for Twitter, GQ dabbles in some conflict of interest, and G/O Media executives put up some terrible AI articles.
Welcome back to Stuff Worth Knowing! Each week, I'll round up news related to tech, video games, film, television, anime, and more.
Alright, so here’s what feels like the new format for the newsletter. Did it take less time to write this weekend? Maybe.
Threads Comes For Twitter’s Spot on Social Media
For the past few months, one section of the internet has wandered around like digital nomads. Elon Musk acquired sole ownership of the service in October 2022 for a massive $44 billion. Since then, he has operated the service like a classic robber baron, slashing the existing staff and making changes to reflect his own personal views. Right-wing figures were returned to the platform and their voices were amplified.
Worse, Musk is looking for any return for his $44 billion purchase, causing him to make decisions purely to draw blood from the stone that is Twitter. The verification system was removed, replaced with the $8 per month Twitter Blue subscription. Twitter’s API was moved to a paid service as well, killing several third-party apps and other information services. The Trust and Safety Council was disbanded, the company stopped paying rent at several global offices, and the number of low-quality ads and bots has risen as Elon is willing to accept anyone’s money to make a buck.
With Twitter dying from a social and service standpoint, users have been looking for any safe port, any replacement for the current Twitter, hopefully leaning toward something more like the social media service’s heyday. Substack Notes, Mastodon, Cohost, Hive Social, and Bluesky have all been contenders to the throne. While they’ve each built their own small communities, none have really come for the broken king.
This week saw the launch of Threads, a new text-based service from Instagram and parent company Meta. It was originally revealed in a report from The Verge in early June, under the code-name Project 92. If you squint, the service is almost entirely identical to Twitter; the buttons are in a different order, but the general presentation is largely the same.
Apparently, that’s all anyone really wanted. Threads launched on Wednesday and sign-ups for the service reached 70 million users by Friday. That’s up from 2 million sign-ups in the first two hours, 5 million two hours later, and 10 million seven hours later. Folks were jumping over to Threads in droves. Some of this was aided by Instagram's own considerable user base, as making a Threads account requires a user to have an existing Instagram account.
More important for Meta’s purposes is the fact that major organizations joined average folks in the transition. In fact, many of the brands were there first, as it seems they were a part of Meta’s pitch. “We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run, that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution,” said Meta chief product officer Chris Cox in an employee preview of the service. Cox admitted that creators were looking for a “stable place” for their social media presence, following Musk’s erratic behavior as Twitter’s head. The site’s owner tweeting “Zuck is a cuck” is probably not want businesses want to see.
Netflix, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, NPR, The Washington Post, ProPublica, Bloomberg, Sportscenter, SAG-AFTRA, and more organizations have live Threads accounts already. Even some notable people like ESPN Senior NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, and game deals poster Wario64 have already joined the service. Basically, Threads has seen not only growth in general users, but also the bigger accounts social media needs as a foundation.
Everything is not sunshine and roses for Threads, however. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri stated that Threads would be shying away from supporting news. “Politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads—they have on Instagram as well to some extent—but we're not going to do anything to encourage those verticals,” said Mosseri on Threads. That’s probably because Meta as a whole is facing having to pay news organizations in regions like Australia, Canada, and California. (They also threatened Congress over news bills.)
Like Instagram and Facebook, Threads takes in far too much user data. In fact, Threads didn’t launch in the European Union due to regulatory issues over user data. Brands are on Threads, yes, but that has led to a brand-heavy feel to the platform. The service is also lacking features: There’s no chronological feed—though one is coming—no web app, no word search or hashtag system, and no direct messaging system. It’s amazingly barebones in comparison to the competition.
It’s a damning testament of how much people hate Elon Musk and what he’s done to Twitter that a product from Mark Zuckerberg and Meta looks like a better alternative despite all those issues. Musk himself has threatened to sue Meta over Threads, according to a report by Semafor. He alleges that Meta hired a number of engineers fired from Twitter during the huge layoffs. Meta communications director Andy Stone denied the allegations. “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee—that’s just not a thing,” said Stone on Threads.
So is this it? Have the Twitter diaspora found their new spot? I don’t think anything will really be Twitter in the same way again, but of the contenders, Threads is the strongest so far. Hive Social lacks a team to handle a larger service, Mastodon is a bit cumbersome for the average user, and Cohost is just Tumblr again.
I admit, Bluesky is probably the strongest also-ran. The service, an offshoot of Twitter before Musk acquired it, has a number of great system features and a creative community. The issue is you can’t build a broad social media service on just the posters among us; they do good work, but they’re not the only reason a service survives. It doesn’t help that Bluesky hamstrung itself with an invite-only system, making it essentially a non-starter for replacing Twitter at the moment. (See: Clubhouse getting beat by Twitter Spaces.) And there’s no indication that Bluesky’s current community survives the influx of everyone else.
So after all the nonsense, pain, and wandering, it seems the safe harbor might be Mark Zuckerberg, simply by being less of a billionaire goon compared to Elon Musk. That’s a sad state of affairs for the internet at large, but that’s the reality we’re working with.
Film, Television, and Streaming 🎞️
GQ Removes Article Critical Of WBD’s David Zaslav
On Monday, GQ published an article from freelancer Jason Bailey, all about how Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is the worst. Hours later, that piece was edited and then removed from the site entirely. Apparently, Zaslav complained to GQ management, which was enough for the edits, and following those edits Bailey asked for his name to be removed from the piece, which led to it being taken down entirely.
The real shit hit when Variety reported that GQ editor-in-chief Will Welch is producing a film at Warner Bros. Discovery. That would be a clear conflict-of-interest, one which GQ hid during the entire process. Instead, GQ stated that the piece was “not properly edited before going live.”
SAG-AFTRA Prepares For a Potential Strike
Last week, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) offered an extension on its contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The contract was supposed to end on June 30, but the extension pushed that until July 12, which is this upcoming week. In a post on social media, the union showed its members preparing picket signs for a potential strike. “If a strike becomes necessary, we’re ready,” said the post. Wonder how this week will go for Hollywood?
Petition To The FCC Seeks To Remove Broadcast License From Fox Station
On July 3, the Media and Democracy Project filed a petition asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny the broadcast license renewal of Philadelphia TV station FOX 29 over false statements. The petition is backed by former Fox Broadcasting Company executive Preston Padden, who says the recent Dominion settlement shows that Fox knowingly manipulated its audience “for wholly unjustified reasons.” The petition is unlikely to be granted, but it’ll be interesting to see if the FCC responds.
AI 🤖
G/O Media Sites Start Publishing AI Articles and They’re All Wrong
On Wednesday, readers began to notice AI-generated articles popping up on G/O Media sites, including Gizmodo and The A.V. Club. The articles, written by “[site name] Bot” were standard listicles; the Gizmodo one being a list of all the Star Wars films and TV shows in chronological order (archive link). Unfortunately for G/O Media executives, the articles were simply wrong. The Star Wars article puts The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels at the end of the chronology and skips Andor and The Book of Boba Fett entirely.
There’s also no meat to the articles. No interesting descriptions or pithy asides. They’re the most boilerplate boring lists I’ve ever read. The A.V. Club article is “The Biggest Summer Blockbusters of 2003”, but not only does it miss major films like X2: X-Men United and S.W.A.T., it’s also nothing more than the film names and their domestic box office numbers. There’s no there… there.
The staff at Gizmodo revolted, arguing that the story was “actively hurting our reputations and credibility”. G/O Media editorial director Merrill Brown said the errors would be “corrected as swiftly as possible”, but they remain up at the time of this writing. Probably because you need an editor to correct them, huh?
OpenAI Offers General Availability of GPT-4 As ChatGPT Sees Its First Decline
This week, OpenAI reached another milestone, releasing GPT-4 for general user availability. All existing API developers with a history of successful payments can jump onto the GPT-4 train for their apps and services. At the same time, according to data from Similarweb via The Washington Post, traffic to the ChatGPT website fell 9.7% from the previous month. Downloads of the iPhone app have also fallen since a peak in early June.
Video Games 🎮
Sega Will Protect Its Primary Franchises From Blockchain Gaming
“Blockchain” and “Web3” are still front and center on a few companies’ minds, with Ubisoft, Square Enix, and Sega all planning gaming titles utilizing the technology. In an interview with Bloomberg, Sega says that it won’t be making blockchain games using its primary franchises, as to “avoid devaluing its content.” Probably a good idea.
Sega Documents From 1997 End Up Online
On Monday, a user called GoldenDreamcast uploaded a massive PDF called “Sega Fiscal Year 1997 Brand Review”. The PDF contains a bunch of internal Sega documentation from the era, including TV commercial storyboards, internal emails, and the company’s analysis of the Sega Saturn’s chances against the Sony PlayStation. If you’re a console war history buff, some of these documents are worth a read. Sega Saturn, Shiro! has a rundown of some of the juiciest bits.
Far Cry Source Code Leaks
Old documentation wasn’t the only huge leak this week. The source code for the original Far Cry also found its way onto the Internet Archive. (I won’t be linking to it here.) The leak came from modder and dataminer Vinícius Medeiros. The assets weren’t included in the files, collectively labeled “Far Cry 1.34 complete”. With some leg work, modders will be able to do all sorts of weird things to Far Cry. Doubt Ubisoft sees it in the same light.
Tech ⌨️
Federal Judge Prevents Biden Admin From Contacting Social Media Companies
A U.S. Federal judge has ruled in favor of an injunction preventing Biden administrative agencies and officials from contacting social media companies about moderating content. Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty—appointed by former President Donald Trump—agreed with the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri that President Biden and several other agencies have worked with social media platforms to prevent misinformation around COVID and the election. He sees this as a bad thing. The injunction includes the Department of Justice, State Department, Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Terrible.
Reddit Tells Moderators To Remove NSFW Tags From Communities
Reddit continues to fight with its own moderators, despite not actually being involved with those communities or paying those moderators. The latest fight involves moderators making their subreddits “Not Safe For Work”, which makes those communities ineligible for advertising and adds an age gate. Reddit told moderators of offending subreddits like r/Military and r/Pics that they could be removed if the NSFW tags weren’t removed, forcing those moderators to relent. Other communities have held strong in the face of Reddit’s threats.